Renowned as a comic colossus, Phill Jupitus is returning to his first love in the guise of his ‘80s word-slinging alter ego Porky The Poet. David Owens discovered why the former left-wing firebrand is putting poetry back on the agenda and why he’s fallen out love with Labour

Phill Jupitus has experienced the sort of career arc for which the word ‘varied’ was tailor made.

He can cite comedian, DJ, actor, cartoonist, musician and West End star to a CV that is both lengthy and prolific.

Not one to rest on his laurels for too long save his favoured gig, an 18 year tenure as team captain on Never Mind The Buzzcocks of course, he’ll be in the Welsh capital next month as part of the Cardiff Comedy Festival revisiting the role which launched his career three decades ago.

Then, in the guise of his word-slinging alter ego Porky The Poet, he took to the stage with ire burning brightly and the Thatcher government in his sights, touring colleges, universities and student unions supporting the likes of Billy Bragg, The Style Council and The Housemartins.

So why his return to the scene of former glories after all this time?

“When I became a DJ, presenting the breakfast show on 6Music for five years (from 2002-2005), that completely stopped any live work,” he explains.

“When I came back to it after leaving 6Music I did lots of different things. I wrote a play that I did at the Edinburgh Festival, I performed in Hairspray in the West End, so it was that doing lots of different things that took me back to the poetry, which was something I hadn’t done in quite a few years.

“I hadn’t written regularly since the late ‘80s, early ‘90s, so to come back to it ostensibly after a 20 year break it felt really new and it was fun to do. And then I thought I had never done a full poetry show at the Edinburgh Festival. So two years ago I decided to do one.

“It was weird because obviously I’d changed, I was a different fella coming back to something I knew quite well and it was fun in a completely different way. It’s different poetry that I do now. Quite often I drop an old one in and it’s a different feel and a different pace, but it feels right so I want to do it.”

His new Edinburgh show Juplicity, which Jupitus is fine-tuning for a run in the Scottish capital, sees him sharpening his pencil in the direction of religion, dieting, politics, hate, hipsters, love, parenthood, sex, The Clash, baseball, death, Michael Gove and a slew other vital matters.

“It’s an interesting thing to discover that you change what you write about as you get older,” he says. “When you’re younger you’re much more raw in a negative way as you’re so sensitive to everything around you. You can’t help but react to it. That‘s a very odd way of behaving. You don’t give anything consideration, you let your reaction out before you’ve weighed up alternatives.

“I’m obviously not the same man who wrote all those very angry poems about Mrs Thatcher in the 1980s. Things like pragmatism and parenthood, the realities of life and your own mortality start to creep in, so they start skewing your view on things.

“There’s certain things that don’t change about you – your moral core doesn’t shift in all that time it’s just your ability to deal with it improves with age I think.

“I enjoy writing poetry more now,” he adds. “Back in the ‘80s it felt like more of a cathartic act of getting things out of my system so I didn’t explode. You’re supposed to be like that when you’re young, that’s the job of your first flush of art when you’re young, it’s very immediate and raw.

“So I’m writing poetry from a very different place now, but I’m still as angry except I don’t put it out on stage as much anymore.”

Back in the ‘80, Jupitus channelled that invective by hitching a ride with Billy Bragg and Paul Weller on what proved to be the ultimately ill-fated Labour-sponsored Red Wedge Tour.

“The reason I got involved was 20% because I believed in the cause, 30% because I loved Billy Bragg, and 50% because I wanted to meet Paul Weller,” he laughs.

“I’m not saying we all had copies of (The Jam’s) Sound Affects under our arms but we f****** should have!”

Joking aside, Jupitus admits he was so chastened by the experience that it turned him off politics for life.“I worked in the Red Wedge office for about six months and once you worked past being star struck and realised you were trying to achieve something you knuckled down.

“When the actual practicalities of dealing with the Labour Party kicked in you quickly realised why very little gets achieved in politics, because they’re so busy manoeuvring around each other the job that they’re there to do starts to take a back seat. There’s all these different factions trying to get their people pushed forward.

“The time I spent working there was why I have very little faith in the Labour Party now. I think Ed Milliband is less use than a chocolate teapot.”

See Phill Jupitus as Porky The Poet at Sherman Cymru on Friday, July 18 as part of the Cardiff Comedy Festival. For tickets see www.shermancymru.co.uk For full Cardiff Comedy Festival line-up details visit www.cardiffcomedy.co.uk